


Flowers in the Window

by amelinazenitram (AmelinaZenitram)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Prompts in Panem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-20
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-16 10:11:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1343704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmelinaZenitram/pseuds/amelinazenitram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> "And now we’re here and now it’s fine</em>
  <br/>
  <em>So far away from there and there is time, time, time</em>
  <br/>
  <em>To plant these seeds and watch them grow</em>
  <br/>
  <em>So there’ll be flowers in the window when we go” </em>
</p><p>One sleepless night, Peeta ponders the idea of having kids with Katniss. Post-MJ, Pre-epilogue. Based on the song “Flowers in the Window” by Travis.</p><p>Written for Prompts in Panem Round 5, Day 4: Hyacinth (Fertility).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers in the Window

**Author's Note:**

> This is very different from my current WIP, but I couldn't help myself. First PiP entry ever :)
> 
> Thanks to dealan for looking this over, and misshoneywell for hosting the challenge.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I borrow with love.

He looks at her, smiling contentedly as she lies wrapped in the warmth of his arms, and remembers the days he spent molded to the riverbank before she found him during their first Games.

The memory is still fuzzy around the edges – even without the hijacking, the haze of fever swallowed up some details that he’ll probably never get back – but he does remember the cold.  _This is it,_  he had thought.  _This is how it ends. Freezing, bleeding, and alone._ But then he’d heard her voice, calling to him as loudly as she could without drawing attention to her location. She’d cared for him, held him to keep the cold at bay.

And that first time she kissed him, he remembers thinking how this would make for such a dramatic story to tell his kids one day – a ridiculous, foolish fantasy that lasted only a moment before the reality of the Games crashed around them once more, but lingering in his consciousness just long enough to make him smile as he drifted into another fever-induced slumber.

He sighs at his naïveté, and how he had fallen for the love story the same way the audiences had in the Capitol.  _We’ve come a long way_ , he thinks with relief. But that doesn’t stop him from thinking about what he’d say if his children ever ask about how Mommy and Daddy fell in love.

That is, if he ever has them.

 

\----

 

He blows a lock of hair off his forehead as he thinks back to the first time he had really, _seriously_  thought about becoming a father. He doesn’t count the baby bomb he dropped at the Quarter Quell – how could he, when he had gone into those Games convinced he would never leave? No, he thinks instead of that day during the Harvest Festival a few years back.

The newly-built bakery had been busiest he’d ever seen, but not even the stress of keeping the shelves stocked could put a damper on his spirits. Given the events of the previous evening, nothing short of a freak blizzard knocking out half of District 12 could have made him feel anything but deliriously happy.

After all, it wasn’t every day that the woman you love says – though not in so many words – that she loves you back.

The sex was a pretty sweet bonus, too.

Having her work alongside him that day was the icing on the cake. He remembers the light brush of her fingertips on his arm as she reached across him to grab some rolls from the display case. He remembers the pink tinge that appeared on her cheeks whenever their eyes met, and how that blush seemed to deepen when she noticed the knowing smiles of their customers. But what he remembers most is how she won the heart of every child who entered the shop without even trying. How they would emerge from their hiding places in the folds of their mothers’ skirts and clamor for cookies. How she would smile at them, so sweetly, as she placed the proffered sweets into eagerly waiting hands.

He’d always thought she would make a great mother someday, but seeing her like this had been like a strange punch to the gut. Suddenly, fatherhood wasn’t a distant prospect discussed by his mother as she planned his future for him - nor was it a ploy he used to keep them alive. Fatherhood, he realized, was a future he  _wanted._  A future he wanted with her.

He didn’t tell her any of this – not that day, anyway. It seemed ridiculous to do so, given that they were still teenagers. The state of their relationship was still so new, and besides, he knew her well enough to know that some things were better left unsaid.

But the seed had been planted. They’d survived two Games and a revolution. They’d been blown apart, only to grow back together. They’d lost so much, yet found hope in each other. Given what they had managed to accomplish together, he couldn't help but think that the idea of having a family someday was not as outlandish as she might believe.

It seems inappropriate to say it in such terms, but he felt like the odds on this one were pretty well in his favor.

 

\---

 

He lightly traces the scar on her bare shoulder, and thinks back to just a few hours ago. The way she suddenly shut down when they saw all those kids on the news, still homeless and parentless, years after the revolution’s end. The quiet sadness that threatened to swallow the room whole, and the angry rant that followed. “ _That? That’s why I’ll never have kids,”_ she’d said. _“I could never bring a child into this world knowing that something like that could happen to them.”_

This wasn't the first time he had heard her talk like this. He knows how she feels about children – and, though it takes a particular type of bravery for him to say so aloud, he also knows that her stance has less to do with the state of Panem than it does her fear of allowing darkness to overtake her as it had her mother. To be honest, he’s still a bit shocked that she even agreed to do a toasting.

While he is accustomed to hearing such declarations, they still rankle him on some level. They are, obviously, no strangers to the lingering horrors of war – there’s a cabinet full of mismatched and cracked china to prove it – but so much time has passed, and in that time, there has been so much good. Districts rebuilt. Families put back together. So long as they never slipped into complacence, the horrors of the past were not like to repeat themselves. Why couldn't she see that?

She knows his feelings on the subject as well. He’s seen the look on her face as she watches him congratulate expectant mothers. He’s seen the guilt that she wears when she’s caught him staring at young families in the square. The only thing he hates more than those looks are the words that inevitably follow: how bad she is for him, how she hates that she can’t be that person he wants her to be, and how he ought to go and find someone who can give him the family he deserves.

He’d known what would happen if he said anything, so he hadn't argued.

Of course, it happened anyway.

And later, after they’d fought and cried and loved themselves breathless, he’d held her in his arms and said the same thing he always does – that he loves her. That what they have is enough. That he might  _want_  children, but he _needs_  her.

But that won’t stop him from hoping.

 

\---

 

A gentle breeze floats through their open window, carrying with it the light scent of hyacinths. The moon hangs low in the sky, and he knows he’ll pay for it in the morning if he doesn't at least try to get some rest. But as he settles in, he can’t help but hold her a bit more tightly, his palm splayed across her belly, and imagine what it might be like to feel a child – his child – moving beneath the skin. He hears her voice in her head, softly singing that sweet lullaby he’ll forever associate with her, and imagines what it might be like to watch her sing that same tune to a dark-haired daughter with blue eyes that remind him of his father. He imagines what it might be like to chase after a blond haired son with silver eyes, sending fluffy spirals of dandelion seeds into the wind as they run across the Meadow.

He knows what he’ll be painting tomorrow.

The corners of his lips lift into a smile as he closes his eyes, planting a kiss into her hair. He knows that she’s still not ready, but he’s okay with that. It doesn't matter that they've been together for almost ten years. As far as he’s concerned, they have all the time in the world.

 _Not now,_ he thinks as he finally drifts off to sleep. _B_ _ut someday. Someday, I’ll convince her._

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you are unfamiliar with the song "Flowers in the Window," give it a listen. It makes me happy every time I hear it.  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYvv4mg52CA
> 
> Feedback always appreciated :)


End file.
